Studies
by Val Mora
Summary: Severus has little faith in platitudes, and less still in Remus Lupin but still, Lupin holds his traitorous heart, despite all the years and the betrayals. SSRL, SBRL slash.


A/N: Angst, but plot-driven angst. Weird. Creepy. I hate plot; I far prefer character studies. Well, I guess this qualifies for that, too.

I got sick of SB/RL fans having Lupin and Snape get together during Lupin's year teaching at Hogwarts, and then having Lupin abandon Snape for Black, because while I am not an active Snapefan, I do have a soft spot for him.

This soft spot does not extend to a happy ending, unfortunately.

This was beta'd by the wonderful TeaRoses, who writes killer Hellsing fanfiction. Go read her stuff.

Disclaimer: Is Harry Potter a morass of homoerotic angst-festing? Then it's still JKR's.

Studies

The strength of platitudes is insignificant in the face of reality. _If you want it badly enough, you will get it. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. You can only dream._

Severus has wanted since he was a student. Badly enough? Perhaps. It is probable. He has never _gotten_ anything, not of this thing, this whatever-it-is that he desires so deeply.

He tried, once. Tried for friendship, and forged it easily enough. Tried for courting, and nearly succeeded - and then was failed in enough ways to discourage any more attempts. In that, no amount of _trying_ would have gotten him anywhere.

So of course, he stifles the dreaming, the thought. The wishing. The wanting, until he has forgotten that he has it, except at night in his dreams, when scarred hands touch his and a wry, painful-loving-warm smile is aimed at him, and in response to which he feels himself echo it.

They are recurring dreams he has had since his years as a schoolboy, and he no longer bothers to think of them, to remember what they represent.

Yet, when that creature that lives only in his dreams reappears, he is not happy. Why should he be? His dream-beloved bears little resemblance to the shabby, worn solidity of Remus Lupin.

Besides, he lost the real one long ago, to a man whose name is now hated and inextricably tied to that of the Dark Lord. It wasn't then, of course – then, Sirius Black was young, handsome, and wild; the prankster and the courageously idiotic Gryffindor. The almost-killer, who sent Severus to die at Lupin's werewolf-paws and failed, and yet by the end of it, had somehow claimed Lupin's heart, for all his betrayal.

Severus thinks of Black's role in the murders of the Potters with a sort of malicious glee every time he is reminded of it: he was _right_ not to trust Black, _right_ to believe that Lupin was wrong to fall in love with the other boy.

It is a hollow victory.

-

Lupin comes to him, a week or perhaps a little more before the full moon of that month, and tries to talk to him. Severus is snappish, too tired of dealing with incompetent children and Minerva's weary acceptance of his dislike of Potter to treat Lupin kindly.

'Kindly' is a relative term, with Severus. 'Kindly' is listening to the werewolf's woes before urging him out the door.

"Lupin," he says, interrupting the man midsentence. "No fewer than eight first-years in some way splattered hazardous potions on everything within firing range in my classroom today, and that does not even _begin_ to deal with what the rest of my classes mangled, botched, or downright failed to do. I am not in the mood to listen to your musings on the value of standardizing cages for captive Grindylows, as _fascinating_ and _integral to your work_ as they might be." His tone drips sarcasm like a waterfall does water.

"Indeed, Severus?" Lupin asks mildly, leaning over Severus's desk and planting a hand firmly on top of the seven-foot-long essay by Granger he had been (not) grading, covering up the bright red _24_ scrawled at the top next to her name, beside the phrase _Far too long._ His palm smears the ink into a pink blur.

"Yes." Severus bites the word off as though by doing so, he could rid himself of Lupin's presence. The man is a paradox of new resentment and old desire that leaves Severus wishing him gone.

"Perhaps you would be more in the mood for a discussion of something else? I've heard that you've been contributing to a study that might lead to the production of artificial phoenix tears for use in medical facilities – is it interesting?"

Severus grits his teeth, but he admits to himself that Lupin is clever to bring up a subject sure to make him talk. "It is not proceeding well. Albus has kindly allowed me small samples of his phoenix's tears, but tests I have been conducting are inconclusive. I was going to begin another round of testing tonight, but I suppose that is out of the question now." He makes sure to make it clear that he _would_ have made progress, had Lupin not been there.

As ever, Lupin chooses to ignore the implications of his words.

"Well, then, would you like to come by my rooms for tea? Since you don't appear to have anything on a burner, and I'm sure that failing third-years' essays could easily wait an hour." Lupin smiles easily as he speaks, and seems to be stifling a grin during his assertion about Severus's grading habits.

Severus is reminded, abruptly, of a fifth-year Defense project on vampires, during which they spent many hours in the Restricted Section, and during which Lupin – no, he was Remus, then, when they were still on speaking-amicably terms – during which Remus made several remarks teasing Severus about the choices of dress and behaviour that made him seem almost vampiric. All of the comments were spoken with that same smile, that same charming, half-distant affection, and now, as then, Severus lacks sufficient willpower to resist it.

"Very well," he answers, and stands, leaving the bottle of ink open. It was a shade too pink to be the blood-red he prefers to mark papers in, anyway.

-

Lupin, like Severus, has two personal rooms; one for sitting, the other for sleeping. Severus's sitting room was long ago transmuted into a workroom, in which cauldrons smoke, bubble, steam, and, occasionally, explode. Lupin's is still a sitting room.

He has a teakettle boiling on a desk by the wall, as though he knew that Severus would agree to come and was already prepared.

"Is Earl Grey all right?" Lupin asks, pouring the hot water into a teapot. "Or would you prefer jasmine?"

"It's fine," Severus says, trying to be short and failing, demeanor inexplicably softened by his admittance to Lupin's sanctum.

Lupin gestures to an overstuffed chair in the center of the room. "Sit down, Severus. No need to stand on ceremony. It'll be ready in a moment."

Severus examines the furniture critically before seating himself on one end of a steel-grey couch that gives slightly under his weight, while Lupin comes over with a saucer in each hand, steaming cups of tea rattling as he walks.

"I'm sorry if it's too weak," Lupin says self-consciously as he sets Severus's down on the table and settles onto the couch opposite. "I don't know if it stewed for long enough."

"It will be fine," Severus says before taking a sip. It's not as strong as he likes – and he likes his very strong indeed – but it will suffice.

"You say that as though it's physically painful for you to contemplate drinking it," Lupin murmurs with good humour, and shares a secretive smile over the rim of his cup that Severus is hard-pressed not to return.

He does not answer and instead waits for Lupin to speak, but he is not, and never has been, a particularly patient man. After a few moments, he assumes an expression of boredom, turns his gaze to the undecorated mantel above the fireplace, and drawls, "Surely, Lupin, you asked me here to discuss more important things than the weather and the state of your tea."

"Remus, please, Severus. And no." Lupin turns to look at the wooden floor. "That was not all I wished to discuss."

"What was it, then?" Severus asks, and then adds, "Remus," after a pause, because he cannot help it. Remus's name is heavy with mythological significance, and he once enjoyed saying it, sounding out syllables that jolted off his tongue like Remus's smiles jolted his nerves.

He finds that he still enjoys saying it.

"I wanted to apologize," Remus begins. "For accusing you of outrageous jealousy. For doubting your honesty. For doubting your honor, as well – I was more willing to believe you a traitor to Dumbledore than most, I think." Remus's eyes turn to Severus's, and they are grey-green. "For doubting you. For forsaking you."

Severus would respond, but he finds he does not know how. The only words that he can feel on his tongue are bitter ones, and he does not want to send those winging to Remus's ears.

"I've had twelve years to think about things, and when I came back to Hogwarts, to teach, I thought that maybe, while I can't fix my mistakes, I can make the right choices now," Remus says, and Severus puts down the teacup with fingers that tremble ever-so-slightly.

"What does that mean?" Severus forces himself to ask, and almost succeeds at keeping the hope out of his voice.

"It means that I'd like to love again. To love you," Remus says, and Severus looks at his eyes again, at the amber that lurks behind the human colors, and remembers why he gave up trying, after he found that Sirius Black had Remus Lupin's affections.

A werewolf's body is his own, but his heart belongs to only one. And that one, in Remus Lupin's case, is a man who should still be rotting in Azkaban.

Severus aches for Remus, but he has more pride. He will not be second-best, the replacement for a man he hates.

"I apologize," Severus says, and his throat hurts from the frozen formality of it, "but I cannot return the – emotion to which you refer. I am very sorry if I in some way invited this." He stands, leaving the still-steaming teacup on the table, and walks to the door, opening it and striding halfway through before turning and stating, "I shall see you tomorrow then, Lupin," before closing it behind him.

Upon reaching his rooms, he finishes marking the essays, giving young Goyle a 98, taking two percent off for misspelling his own name, and finds savage catharsis in making sure that no Ravenclaw will pass his class this semester.

In his workroom, near midnight, he stares at the small vial of phoenix tears on his desk before beginning to stir up a potion. It should test whether there is magic inherent in the tears themselves, or if the healing properties come from the phoenix that sheds them. If the latter, than his hope for a medical advancement will be crushed like the herbs he ground to make the potion.

It will take thirty minutes of simmering to guarantee accurate results, so Severus sits in a chair and reads treatises on experimental uses of Erumpent horns while he waits, but he finds that he is reading the same sentence over again, uncomprehending.

He would wonder why, but he knows the answer is not one he wants to know, and that it involves a smile that undoes him.

Finally, frustrated, he throws the parchment to the floor and strides over to the cauldron. The concoction inside is an amber that reminds him of the colors lurking in the depths of Lupin's eyes, and he curses, knocking the potion over and not caring that it spills across the floor.

No magic. They are nothing, the tears, and are only powerful because the beast that creates them is so. As his desire is nothing, because no amount of desire would ever win Remus Lupin's heart.

Severus curses, again, and kicks the silver cauldron once more, for good measure, before he throws the vial of phoenix tears on the floor, watching the shards of glass dull against the stone of the dungeon floor as they dissolve in the potion seeping through the cracks.


End file.
